In working with documents on a computer, there are often problems in retrieving large documents or document attributes. Retrieving an entire document or attribute could fill up a cache memory and could tie up network traffic if the document being retrieved is stored on a remote node. This problem becomes more complex and difficult when several documents are retrieved. However, the computer user often requires only a portion of each document or attribute out of a desired set of documents. Bringing only those portions out of the repository saves cache memory and time that the network is tied up in the transfer of documents. Further, the computer user may not be a sophisticated programmer or may not want to spend time learning a complicated language or writing complicated programs in order to fetch the desired portions of documents.
There is a need for a simple way to retrieve portions of documents or document attributes from repositories.
SUMMARY
A document management apparatus provides means for a user to define delimiters in order to specify portions of documents or attributes of documents to be retrieved from a document repository. The repository is searched for the defined delimiters and the portions of the documents or the attributes of documents are retrieved and put into a cache memory. The user-defined delimiters may be multi-character delimiters. The cache memory and the document repository may be connected over a network.
These and other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a detailed reading of the detailed description in conjunction with the attached drawings in which like reference numerals refer to the elements in the several views.